Description

Area 51, the urban legend, is a U.S. military-controlled base in the Nevada desert, apparently containing a secret aircraft testing facility. It is also famed as the subject of many UFO conspiracy theories. Area-51, the game, is a first-person shooter (FPS) set in this particular base, now infested with rampant aliens and a mutagenic virus that changes your character. As Ethan Cole, Special Forces, specialist in the HAZMAT (hazardous materials) Division, you have to discover what's going on inside the base and blast the menace to save the world. Your character races against time: the same virus that is mutating the facility personnel into monsters is also in his organism, slowly transforming him into an inhuman creature under the control of the alien masterminds.

The hero has access to more than ten types of human and alien weapons to fight the creatures. They are designed by Stan Winston Studios, monster creator for such films as Aliens, Jurassic Park and Predator. The weapons can be used in melee combat as well, and it's possible to switch to an alternate firing mode, in some cases with the downside that it consumes more ammo. Ethan can also use a scanner to investigate items of interest, documents, alien artifacts and residue. The information contributes to the backstory and is stored in the scanner's databank.

At a specific point in the game, you will gain the ability to mutate into a creature for a limited time. All monsters and humans are then highlighted by your thermal vision, and you can use claws in melee and shoot heat-seeking parasites. Staying in the mutant form consumes mutagen, which can then be replenished by draining infected corpses, killing enemies in melee or consuming special syringes with mutagen, as opposed to using normal medical syringes to restore health.

Area-51 has a two-player split-screen and an online multiplayer (for up to 16 players) component with several modes including Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, Capture and Hold, and Infection. In Infection, all but one player start as normal healthy soldiers hunting one mutant player. The latter is able to create more mutants by killing opposing players, and thus infecting them.

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Trivia

Development delay

Originally slated for a Fall 2004 release, Area-51 was criticized in previews for not doing anything new to the genre. Midway delayed the game to a Spring 2005 release.

Over that period of time, Midway made lots of changes to the game. This can be seen by comparing a demo on Official Xbox Magazine's November 2004 demo disc to the full retail version of the game. Most importantly, they added a "scanner" that scans secret documents for information that can later be read when the game session is quit. If the scanner is not pointed at a document, it will display the statistics of an air sample. The other changes to the game include:

- The HUD, title screens, and menus are changed.
- When the player dies, the death will be seen from a first-person view.
- Health packs increase the health more.
- Added cutscenes.
- There is now dual-wield for the machine gun and shotgun.
- Information at the top of the screen tells the player what type of item was picked up.
- The pistol has a sight feature.
- The shotgun is no longer pumped after two individual shotgun shots, but will still pump after doing the "2 shells at once" alt-fire.
- The protagonist now loads two shells into the shotgun at once when reloading it.
- The sniper rifle's zoom is now tinted green.
- Changed gamepad vibration effects.
- Changed voice acting.
- Changed control setup.
- The level design is less linear. Levels in the retail version include keycards in addition to usable objects, both of which the demo lacked.

An updated demo was included on the April 2005 demo disc of the Official Xbox Magazine.

European and German version

The European version of Area-51 is cut in comparison to the US release: there are cuts to black during two cutscenes and various changes to the level design, e.g. in the level "The Search" the player has to activate a scanner with a cut off arm - in the European version the door can be opened without any hassle.

The German version is even more censored: it removes all blood (even the green), ragdoll effects, damage models on enemies. A list of all changes can be found on schnittberichte.com (German).

Freeware release

In October 2008 the Windows version of the game was made available free of charge. The download link can be found in the related links section.